Epic Choice
by VampyrBarbie
Summary: Since her visit, Lexi's words have haunted Elena; with Stefan gone, she finally sees the truth, you can't walk away, but isn't that what she and Stefan have been doing from the word go?
1. Chapter 1

Title: Epic Choice

Author: VampyrBarbie

Summary: Since her visit, Lexi's words have haunted Elena; with Stefan gone, she finally sees the truth, you can't walk away, but isn't that what she and Stefan have been doing from the word go?

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries; I'm just borrowing it for a little while.

When it's real, you can't walk away. Those words haunted her as she lay in Damon's bed, the vampire sleeping peacefully beside her, recovering from his brush with death. You can't walk away, Lexi said but was that what she was doing, walking away or had Stefan walked away from her when he shoes the cure for Damon over her? But she had kissed Damon before she knew what Stefan had done. She couldn't let him die without knowing that she cared for him too, that some part of her, the part she wasn't ready to face, the wild, fiery old Elena, was in love with this dark man, the bad brother.

Elena brushed the hair off of his forehead, being careful not to wake him, she knew she should leave, go back upstairs to bed, but she didn't feel right sleeping in the room she had shared with Stefan, it had never been her room, and now that he was gone, she felt like an intruder.

Damon shifted in his sleep, turning toward her, throwing his arm over her waist and snuggling his face into her belly, it should have made her feel vulnerable to have this predator, one who had so savagely bitten into her neck only the night before, so close to such tender flesh, but instead it made her feel safe, secure. She leaned her head back against the headboard and rubbed circles into Damon's back until he settled, falling back into a deep sleep. She let her eyes drift closed, her hand coming to a rest just under the neck of his t-shirt, his ward skin flush against the palm of her hand making her feel grounded, connected. Sleep rushed up to her like a tidal wave and claimed her body in an instant, all of the stresses of the past few months washed away as the dreamless sleep of absolute exhaustion took over.

Elena woke with her face against a sweat pant clad leg, her arms locked around the same leg. She could feel fingers in her fair, gently massaging her scalp, and it took her a moment to realize where she was. She looked up to see Damon looking down at her cautiously, ready for her to shout at him any second, the book he had obviously been reading all but forgotten in his hand.

Stefan never just stayed in bed while she slept, he got up and hunted and ran and had to get away from her because as soon as he was awake she was a temptation, but here Damon was, quietly reading, letting her sleep, affording her the same courtesy she had given him the night before. The look in his eyes made her heart ache, the anticipation of rejection was like a vice grip around her chest, and she had put it there. A switch threw inside of her, she would take that look away, because what Lexi had said was true, you can't walk away. Stefan had left her, and she had left him, but Damon never had, and if she was honest with herself, she had never walked from him either.

Elena snuggled back down, her face burrowed once again against the side of his leg; she tightened her arms momentarily before relaxing and butting her hand against his hand. "Don't stop," she mumbled into the sweat pant material. "It feels so good."

His fingers hesitated for a moment before resuming their work on her scalp; she could hear the rustle of book pages and closed her eyes in easy contentment. "You're going to have to let me tend to that bite soon," Damon's voice rumbled from above her, but his fingers didn't stop.

"I'll wash it off when I get up to shower," Elena had no intention of moving for at least another hour.

"You need to let me heal it, Elena, or it'll scar," Damon put the book down and moved the hair from her neck, pulling the hair that had dried into the blood away gently. "It's pretty bad." The remorse in his voice brought back the vice around her chest.

"It's okay, "she said sitting up and laying a hand against the side of his face, trying to get those ice blue eyes to meet hers. "It doesn't hurt; I'll just wash it off."

"It's going to scar," Damon pulled away from her gentle touch and went to get out of bed, away from her sad eyes.

"I know," she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, coming up on her knees on the bed. "Sometimes life leaves you with scars, Damon." She pulled him back onto the bed. "Sometimes you need to let it."

"I can fix it, you don't have to live with what I did to you," Damon lifted his wrist to bite into it, veins around his eyes darkening and his fangs elongating. Elena took his hand and pulled it away from his mouth before he could bite down, replacing it with her lips, leaving a careful kiss against his mouth, just like the one she had given him the night before.

"Just leave it," she looked into his human features and took his face in her hands, kissing him again, harder this time now that she no longer had to worry about cutting her lips. He wrapped his arms around her waist, deepening the kiss, memorizing the feel of her lips against his, her body pressed to him, before breaking it. "What about Stefan, Elena?" He didn't want to ask, wanted to live in his fantasy world, but he knew it wouldn't last and ripping the Band-Aid off now would hurt less in the long run.

"He made his choice," Elena said, looking deep into Damon's eyes trying to covey the truth she needed him to see. "I've made mine."

"It's not that easy," Damon went to pull away, but Elena wouldn't let go.

"Yes, Damon, it is." Elena sat back on her heals. "Lexi told me once that when it's real you can't walk away." She took a deep breath and prepared herself to vocalize the truths she hadn't even dared to tell herself, the ones she had been avoiding for months. "Stefan and I have been walking away since the word go, we've been locked in this tragic mess out of some sick need for it to work." She took a deep breath not wanting to say this wrong, not wanting to hurt Damon, not wanting to be Katherine. "I don't want to be another girl who played the Salvatore Brothers against each other, I was with Stefan and therefore could never choose you, but Lexi's words haunted me, I could walk away from Stefan we did it over and over again, but I couldn't walk away from you." Elena took his face in her hands again, willing him to listen to it all and not shut her out, not shut down. "Even after what you did to Jeremy, and I said you lost me, I couldn't walk away, after force feeding me your blood so I couldn't die, part of me just wanted to curl up with you and tell you it would all be okay." Elena watched a small tear make its way down his cheek and she caught it with her thumb, but didn't wipe it away. "You have done so much and I forgave it all because you have never lied to me, never hidden who or what you are from me, and I hate being treated like a fragile doll, you treat me like a person."

"I have lied to you," Damon said, pulling out of her hands. "I brought your necklace back and made you forget."

"Damon, my necklace isn't the only vervain I have," Elena told him. "It's in the tea I drink, my shampoo; you told me you needed me to forget, so I did, for you, but you never lied."

"Why?" Damon wasn't even sure what he was really asking.

"Because it was safer to be compelled, I'm smarter then I'm given credit for," Elena said. "Then you needed to tell me you loved me without the consequences of rejection, without me knowing, so it could be business as usual, so I gave you that. Because I love you, Damon. I don't know when I stopped loving Stefan and started pretending, but I started to love you in Atlanta, and it grew when I saw you at the bottom on the stairs at the Miss Mystic pageant and when you helped with Stefan's detox. I'm so scared Damon, I don't want to be Katherine."

"Then choose, do the one thing she wouldn't," Damon told her, preparing to close his heart, despite how hopeful her words had made him feel.

"I already did, Damon. I chose you, because I can't walk away, because being with you forever doesn't scare me," Elena closed the distance between them, letting her lips hover over his, hesitating before she said her final piece. "Even though I choose you, we still need to find Stefan and get him away from Klaus."

"I know," Damon said, pulling her flush against his body, their lips almost touching. "Tomorrow." His lips fell on hers and he had no intention of letting go.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Epic

Author: VampyrBarbie

Summary: Since her visit, Lexi's words have haunted Elena; with Stefan gone, she finally sees the truth, you can't walk away, but isn't that what she and Stefan have been doing from the word go?

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries; I'm just borrowing it for a little while.

Last Time: "I know," Damon said, pulling her flush against his body, their lips almost touching. "Tomorrow." His lips fell on hers and he had no intention of letting go.

Elena tucked her feet under herself, curling up on the couch at the Boarding House, with an ancient copy of Little Women. She could hear Damon puttering around in the kitchen making dinner for their hodge-podge makeshift family. Jeremy was lugging a suitcase up the stairs to one of the guest rooms, with the help of Tyler, who had his duffle over his shoulder. Ric sat on the opposite couch, a tumbler of scotch in his hands and a sour expression on his face.

"Don't any of those kids have parents who want them home?" he scowled into his drink before throwing it back. "I know none of you bothered to even tell Jenna where you were." Something must have changed on Elena's face; she knew she could feel hot tears in the corners of her eyes, because Ric's face fell. "I'm sorry, Elena."

"It's okay," she said quietly, but got up and went into the kitchen where Damon was tolerating Caroline's presence.

"Elena, please take Barbie out of the kitchen, she keeps trying to 'help'." Damon put little air quotes around help. "This seems to consist of her sticking her fingers in my food and adding salt." Damon looked at Elena for the first time since she walked in and saw the barely concealed tears in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she wiped the tears away, but Damon just waited. "I miss Jena, I keep losing family, first my parents, then Isobel, then Jenna and John; if anything happened to Jeremy I'd be all alone."

"Elena, you have a house full of family," Caroline said, hugging her friend to her. "We might not be related by blood, but families are the people that stick with you through everything, who you turn to when things suck."

"That might be the smartest thing you've ever said, Barbie." Damon made a big sweeping motion, "now out of my kitchen." Caroline smiled and flipped him off before kissing Elena on the cheek and sauntering out of the kitchen. "So, what do we tell them?"

"About us or Stefan?" Elena asked, hoping up on the counter and sticking her finger in the spaghetti sauce he was making. "Caroline was right, needs more salt." Damon batted her hand away from the pot.

"About both," he added some fresh basil and thyme and stirred. "But we should tell them Stefan left first." This shocked Elena momentarily, if it had been Stefan, he would have put their relationship first, been selfish, but Damon wasn't Stefan. They would need the team to help find Stefan, the team came first.

"You're right, we'll need to break the hard news first," Elena pulled Damon to her, letting him settle between her dangling knees. "Then we tell them about how you seduced me." She smiled at him, reveling in her ability to ruffle him, and savored being able to touch him.

"I seduced you?" he pulled her to the edge of the counter so their bodies were flush together. "I think it was the other way around, little girl."

Elena just hummed in the back of her throat as Damon took possession of her lips. A throat clearing behind them brought them back to reality, their hodge-podge family all standing in the doorway. "On the other hand telling them about us firs might be better. You know, lead with the good news."

"If this is the good news, I don't want to guess what you would consider bad news," Bonnie whispered none too quietly to Jeremy, who shushed her.

Damon turned toward the group, leaning back between Elena's knees, showing her full support; Elena put her hands on his shoulders. "Stefan is with Klaus."

"Way to rip the Band-Aid off, Baby," Elena said under her breath.

"Klaus took Stefan?" Caroline exclaimed. "Why the hell didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"No," Elena said, holding her hand up to stop the influx of questions. "Stefan went with Klaus."

"Why would he do that?" Jeremy asked taking a seat on one of the bar stools in the kitchen.

"Stefan isn't in the driver's seat anymore, Little Gilbert," Damon quipped, leaning back into Elena for support, he might show everyone else a face that didn't care, but he was terrified for his little brother and what Klaus would get him to do now that he was back on the blood. "The Ripper is."

"The Ripper?" Tyler asked, more than a little confused as to what was going on.

"I'll tell you the whole story later, Ty." Caroline patted the werewolf on the arm, as the newest member of the Salvatore Boarding House Club, he was a little behind.

"The Ripper is what Stefan becomes when he gets lost to the blood."

"But he's been drinking from Elena for months," Jeremy said, shocking nearly everyone in the room. "What? I might be the little brother, but I'm far from stupid, I've been clued in since Anna, remember?"

"Fair point," Damon relented. "I hate to say it, but I think that the hope that Stefan would be able to control his lust for human blood was a fantasy, sorry Elena." He ran his hands up and down her leg, giving back the support she had been giving him. "I wanted to believe it, too."

"So, what exactly is a Ripper?" Bonnie asked, deciding to join the conversation and not just snark at it.

"Think stereotypical vampire, and not the kind that sparkle, Caroline," Damon started. "No remorse, no thought, just the hunger, the desire to hunt and feed and kill. He cares about nothing and no one, and if Klaus has him under his thumb they will cut a bloody path where ever they go."

"That's bad," Caroline said mildly.

"Well, Vampire Barbie gets the award for understatement of the year, Damon nearly shouted. "It's worse than just bad. They might not be hard to mind, but I don't know if there will be anything left of Stefan even if we can get him away from Klaus."

"So, what, you jumped into bed with Damon because Stefan was a lost cause?" Bonnie asked.

"Don't be a bitch, Bonnie," Caroline said, defending her friend. "Haven't you seen the way they look at each other, you had to know this was coming?" Tyler gave her a proud look while everyone else looked surprised. "I may be a blonde, but I'm not a dumb one."

"Well, Caroline has earned her room at the Salvatore Boarding House," Damon said, giving Elena a final pat before abandoning her to finish his sauce. "Judgey, you may have to sleep on the porch." Bonnie huffed and stomped out of the room, and Elena gave him a weak glare. "Oh come on, like I'd make her sleep on the porch, she is just too sensitive."

"She already doesn't like you," Ric chimed in, throwing back another tumbler of scotch.

"Like that's my fault," the history teacher just raised a brow at the blue eyed vampire. "Okay, mostly it is, but still, she needs to get over herself."


End file.
